May
28
Grandmother warned state of danger 6 months before boy tossed into canal
Filed Under single stories, social services | Comments Off
By KATHLEEN CHAPMAN and STEPHANIE SLATER
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
DELRAY BEACH – Six months before Charles Edward Tyson allegedly threw his son into a canal and left him there to die, the infant’s grandmother told state child-abuse investigators that she worried he could be in danger.
Joanne Mosley, the child’s maternal grandmother, called the state Department of Children and Families and Delray Beach police in October because she did not believe Tyson and her daughter could care for Charles Edward Tyson Jr., then only 2 months old. Mosley, 47, said she had raised the baby, whom everyone called C.J., at her house since his birth in July. On Oct. 3, she got upset because Tyson and Shameka Mosley, then 16, were trying to take him for the night.
Joanne Mosley called Delray Beach police. But when officers arrived, they told her that the parents had custody of their child and were free to leave with him at any time.
The next morning, Mosley called the Florida DCF. She said that during the argument, Tyson had tried to grab C.J. from her arms. She said Tyson had pulled on the infant’s arm and leg until she let go, afraid he would be hurt.
Baby C.J. wore a monitor for a heart defect, she said, and Tyson was pressing on the boy’s chest to prevent Mosley from taking him back.
C.J. was not bruised or hurt in the scuffle, Mosley said, but she did not think Tyson, 20, and her teenage daughter were able to care for a baby. Her daughter has learning disabilities and seizures, she said.
DCF records released to The Palm Beach Post show the department started investigating the case on the day it got the call.
A DCF investigator contacted Delray Beach police to ask what had happened the night before. Officers said that when they got to the house during the argument, C.J. was not crying. They took an incident report but did not file charges because there was no evidence that he had been injured. Law enforcement classified the child-abuse allegation “false,” DCF noted.
On Nov. 14, DCF closed its child-abuse investigation as unfounded. The risk to C.J., department investigators wrote, “is considered low.”
He was killed five months later.
On April 27, Tyson and Shameka Mosley were taking C.J. home from West Boca Medical Center, where he had been treated for diarrhea. While in the car, they got into a fight about rumors that she had been unfaithful.
Tyson allegedly grabbed C.J. and tossed him out of the car’s passenger-side window.
Shameka Mosley said she reached for C.J. as he lay helpless in the dirt, but Tyson allegedly got the baby by the legs and threw him face-down onto the car. The impact left a dent in the hood.
C.J. was still alive and crying, she told police.
Tyson then allegedly sped off with the boy and threw him into a canal on Lowson Boulevard.
Later, he calmly confessed to police. Tyson pleaded not guilty at a court appearance May 19. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Marilyn Munoz, DCF spokeswoman for Palm Beach County, said supervisors cannot answer questions about her agency’s involvement in the case until they finish their review of the file. Managers in Tallahassee also will look at the records, she said.
Delray Beach police spokesman Jeff Messer said his agency did not see any evidence of child abuse after the October incident.
Police officers and fire-rescue workers examined the child and found no signs that the baby was hurt, he said.
“Nobody could conceive the way in which this child ended up dying,” Messer said.
Records released to The Post show that DCF investigators tracked down most family members Oct. 4, the day the state got the report. Tyson said Joanne Mosley was fighting for sole custody of C.J. because she hoped to claim all of the winnings in a malpractice lawsuit against a local hospital for birth defects.
Mosley told The Post that the family did contact a lawyer after C.J.’s birth, but she said money had nothing to do with her decision to care for the baby. She also has raised her son Allen Mosley’s two children since he was sentenced to federal prison on weapons and drug charges.
Shameka Mosley told investigators that she often cared for all three children while her mother was gone, according to DCF records.
Four weeks later, on Nov. 11, a DCF investigator followed up with the family again. Tyson said he did not want any help or services from the state, and that Joanne Mosley was allowing him to visit his child.
Mosley agreed that the family had reconciled since the October dispute over who should care for the baby.
Doctors confirmed that C.J. was doing fine and said relatives were following all recommendations for his care, according to the investigator’s notes.
DCF closed its case Nov. 14.
A week later, Joanne Mosley applied for a restraining order against Tyson, telling a judge that he had sex with her daughter before she turned 16 and that she thought he was too old to be dating her, court records show.
The order, which was granted Dec. 8, gave Tyson two hours a week on Friday nights to see his son and prohibited him from coming close to Shameka Mosley at home, at work, at school or in her car.
Later Joanne Mosley allowed Tyson to visit her home despite the order.
“Charles was her first love,” Joanne Mosley said. “I felt it was safer for me to let him come here to see the baby. That was better than Meka sneaking off with the baby to see Charles.”
Although she worried about his outbursts and threats, Joanne Mosley said Tyson did his best to provide for his son. When he could keep a job and C.J. needed something, he would buy it. When C.J. went to the doctor, he was there. When C.J. stayed overnight in the hospital, he was there.
“I heard Charles pray when my daughter was pregnant for God to give him a son,” Mosley said. “I don’t know what happened to make him do what he did. But I know Charles loved his son.”
It is unclear from the file whether DCF was notified of the restraining order. The last notes in the case were typed by a DCF supervisor Nov. 14, the day the state closed its case on C.J.
“Child is safe with grandmother,” the supervisor wrote.
Copyright 2006 The Palm Beach Newspapers, Inc.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
May 28, 2006 Sunday
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